


La Toussaint

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: All Saints' Day, Angst, Autumn, Cemetery, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Post-Canon, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 10:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: The house was dark and silent. There was a warm presence next to him in the bed. Before, Javert’s company had always felt ominous; Valjean might just as well have rested next to a loaded musket or a chained dog.Now, there was bare skin brushing against his own. He could feel Javert’s warmth where hard limbs touched his own, and unlike many other mornings, there was no initial wave of confusion and terror to find himself trapped in this place with Javert.





	La Toussaint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwelveLeagues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwelveLeagues/gifts).

Valjean did not know how he had come to be here. He could not say how long it had been since he had found himself in the power of a man who made certain to lock all doors and windows whenever he had to leave.

Days had passed—weeks, perhaps. It was hard to tell time during this time of the year. The sky was dark day and night, fog hiding the morning sun, rain incessantly falling against the window panes and denying him a view of what was passing outside.

Nevertheless, Valjean knew where he was held. He had never forgotten this place: the Gorbeau tenement, a hovel of misery, which had once held all that was good in the world when a child’s smile had brightened the simple little room they had rented.

No, Valjean did not need a clear view of the street outside or the corridor and narrow stairs to know where he was. 

He could not say why Javert had brought him here either, and whenever he asked, Javert would reply the same thing: “You are mine now. Be satisfied with what you have. Do not ever seek to leave.”

Valjean shivered when the old house groaned around him. There was a chill in the air; the wind always seemed to find a way inside, even with all the windows closed and the door locked.

He could not even say when it was that Javert came and went every day. The days were much the same to him, and so was the view outside. Surely Javert left in the mornings and returned in the evenings from the station-house, but the melancholy gloom outside did not change much these days, the sun grown too weak in this dark season to burn away the sickly pale fog that clung to the alley outside.

Javert had been gone when he awoke today. Valjean could not say whether that had been minutes or hours ago; in the emptiness of the room, time seemed to stretch until merely being alive seemed a burden impossible to bear.

Valjean’s gaze fell onto the door again. What would he do, were he to escape?

There was something he had planned to do before he had been locked in here. Something he needed to do...

Then, with painful suddenness, he remembered that he was wrong. He could no longer visit Cosette, not even in the dusty cellar with its spider webs. His presence was no longer wanted nor needed in the Rue des Filles du Calvaire.

Valjean exhaled sadly, his eyes riveted on the door. Still, he would have liked to walk there once more, just to gaze upon the house, see the light in the windows, and say to himself: “See, it is very well that you are gone; the children are happy without you, they have their friends and amusements, and every now and then, Cosette will surely think of you with fondness. Oh, how she used to scold me! But she would scold me no more were she to know the truth. She would grow pale and frightened and look at me as though I were a stranger, some wild animal that has invaded her home and scared her. It is for the best that I cannot see her anymore.”

Nevertheless, the door seemed to pull at him like a magnet, untiring and irresistible. When he reluctantly moved closer, he saw that there was a distant light. In the darkness of the room, it shone like a distant star, catching his eye.

It was the keyhole, he realized a moment later. A dim light was falling in through it.

There was a light in the corridor outside…

His heart beating in his throat, he moved closer. It was nothing; a new tenant might have moved in, or else the principal lodger was walking through the corridor with her candle, making certain that everything was in order.

What was her name? It had been so long that he and Cosette had lived here that he had forgotten it. Even so, if he called out, would she not open the door and help?

But then, Javert was an inspector of police, and he a convict. Why should she help him? She must have helped Javert back then—perhaps it was even her who had alerted Javert to Valjean’s hiding-place many years ago.

Hesitantly, Valjean’s hand came to settle on the door handle. He waited for a long moment, but he could not hear a single sound.

At last, he pushed the handle down.

At the same moment, the door was forcefully opened, and in strode Javert with a furious expression on his face. 

Valjean fell back, his heart still hammering in his chest. Javert had not said what he wanted from him; Javert had taken nothing from him, nor had he dragged him to jail. Even so, the look on his face was terrible, and when Javert came towards him, Valjean kept retreating until his back hit the wall.

“You will not seek to leave this room,” Javert said, the words harsh with anger. “Do you understand me? You are mine; this is where you’ll stay.”

Valjean wanted to argue, to demand to know why this was happening to him, but Javert took another step closer, and Valjean found that it had become impossible to form words. He could hear his heartbeat echoing in his ears, as loud as thunder. Javert’s teeth were bared, his eyes blazing like black stars, and when his hands gripped Valjean’s shoulders, Valjean found that his teeth were chattering.

“Never seek to leave again.” 

Valjean found himself nodding, still shaking at the chill in Javert’s voice.

***

He was cold. Had there been a fire last night? He could not now remember—but then, what did it matter? He was still trapped in the Gorbeau hovel, and his jailer still watched him with burning eyes, answering Valjean’s questions with furious silence.

“What day is it?” Valjean asked at last.

An hour or two might have passed. It had to be evening, for Javert was seated in a chair. When had he come back from work? Had he gone out today?

Perhaps Valjean was wrong. Perhaps it was a Sunday, and he had been so lost in the misery that gripped his heart that he had not even heard the church bells ring or managed to gather his own fraying thoughts in prayer.

Prayer would be a mercy.

Valjean had tried to pray, from time to time, but it was difficult; trapped as he was, his thoughts slipped from his grasp like the mist moving through the branches of the trees outside.

Were there leaves still on the trees? Had they turned yellow and red yet; had the leaves perhaps already fallen and left the trees bare against the chill of winter?

Valjean turned his face against the window, but it was dark outside. Every now and then, something seemed to move in the darkness. He shivered, but even so he pressed closer to the window, his cheek freezing where it touched the cold glass. It was so cold that even his breath did not fog up the window.

Javert was staring at him when Valjean finally turned his head back to look at him. His eyes were dark, and Valjean shivered instinctively to see them fixed on him with the intensity of the hunter’s gaze.

Still, there was no escaping the room, and no escaping Javert. Whatever Javert might choose to do to him, did it matter now?

Even the weight of the iron collar would be better than the despair of his thoughts, trapped in this room.

“Why am I here? What do you want from me?”

Javert’s nostrils widened as he exhaled, his eyes unrelentingly stern. “You know why you are here,” he said. “You are mine now. You will grow used to it.”

***

Valjean remembered those words one day when he was alone in the chamber once more. It could not have been much later—there was fog outside the window instead of the snow of winter.

He had risen from the bed, shivering as he did so, for the air was chilly and the bed still warm. He remembered, vaguely, the sensation of Javert coming to lie by his side during the night, but he had left before Valjean had woken, his half of the bed already growing cold.

“You will grow used to it,” Javert had said.

It had to be true, for Valjean had long since lost count of the days he had spent in this chamber. It felt as if months had passed—years of silent desolation, the despair he carried with him still a weight upon his shoulders. Still, it could not be more than a few weeks.

It was still autumn, even though in his heart it was forever winter. 

He went to the window again. His fingers touched the windowpane, but he did not try to open it. He had tried, once, and struggled for long minutes without result.

He pressed his cheek to the cold glass instead, gazing at the outside world that seemed as far from his grasp as the far-away mountains and islands in his books. The mist was shifting outside his window; a cold wind was blowing, white vapor trailing through the branches near his window like bleached rags hanging from the tree. Even through the window he could hear the hollow sound the wind made as it blew through the alley, the roof above him creaking and groaning as if the house, too, knew the pain of a heart that had lost its light.

There were people outside. Amid the shifting fog, Valjean could see shadows moving back and forth. He followed them with longing, barely able to remember now what it felt like to hurry through the mist, a paper-wrapped parcel of fish clutched to one’s chest, perhaps, or carrying a book one had just purchased, or sugar-plums for a young child waiting eagerly at home.

He shuddered, pulled from his thoughts when for the fraction of a heartbeat, the fog shifted enough to give him the smallest glimpse of a figure walking through the street. It was a young woman, her dress dark against the bleached white of the shifting fog, her bonnet hiding her face. Then she turned, just before the fog swallowed her again, denying Valjean a glimpse of her face.

Long moments passed until Valjean came to realize that he was pressed against the window, gasping for breath as if he had just run a long distance. There was a roaring sound in his ears again, his heart shuddering in his chest.

“Cosette...”

A harsh hand clenched around his shoulder and forcibly yanked him back. Javert was towering above him. When had he returned?

Was it that late already; was Javert’s day of work already done? How long had he been sitting by the window?

Javert did not speak, but the look in his eyes frightened Valjean. For a moment, even the thought of Cosette faded away as Valjean found himself helpless before Javert’s fury.

There was something about his eyes... There was a darkness in them, as though something looked back at him from Javert’s eyes, something sinister—more sinister even than the fate that awaited him were Javert to bring him before a judge.

Then, with a shudder, Valjean straightened. It was merely Javert—Javert, his jailer and unwilling companion in this rooms. Javert might have imprisoned him, but even so, what did that matter?

The darkness that surrounded Valjean’s heart was not of Javert’s making. Even now it gnawed away at him while his heart beat sluggishly in his chest, his blood thick and dark like tar. One day soon the work would be done and it would stop beating, and then, at last, he would be free of his torment and Cosette’s happiness would no longer be burdened by his existence.

Javert might not know it, but this time, he was merely an observer of Valjean’s torment, not its cause.

Slowly, Valjean reached out and rested a hand on Javert’s arm.

“It is nothing,” he said. “You have no reason to fear. I’m all yours now. Haven’t I told you so?”

He thought he had. He could still remember it, dimly—the sounds of the barricade, the smell of gunpowder and the sound of shots all around him. No, even though it seemed like a dream now, those events had come to pass. How long ago had it been? June... It had been summer then, and now winter was fast approaching. Even inside, Valjean could already feel its bitter breath at the back of his neck.

Javert was rigid beneath his touch, and when Valjean raised his eyes to his face once more, Javert was even closer. His brows were tightly drawn together, deep lines of fury surrounding eyes and mouth, his whiskers bristling. When he exhaled, Valjean felt the heat of his breath on his face.

He shivered when Javert leaned even closer, and for a moment, frozen with terror, Valjean imagined that Javert might try to kiss him or bite him, both possibilities equally as frightening.

Then Javert moved away.

“You are mine,” he said again, quiet, furious, yet curiously turned away from Valjean. “By your own words, you are. I pray you will not forget that.”

***

Javert had been there when Valjean woke today, which was strange and a rare occurrence. Perhaps it was a Sunday, Valjean had thought, shivering at the sensation of a warm body beneath the same blanket. He felt feverish; he could not order his thoughts.

Had he heard the church bells tolling? He could not remember now. He thought he might be sick; it was hard to think, and his body kept shaking, his skin so sensitive that the mere brush of Javert’s leg against his made him flinch.

Javert’s breath was coming fast. Perhaps it was a sickness that afflicted them both.

There was a pervading scent of dampness. It was no wonder if they had both fallen ill, it was so cold, too cold...

Then Javert shifted and Valjean froze, his breath coming faster at the heat of Javert’s body against his own.

A large hand came to rest on his arm, and all of a sudden Valjean found himself out of the bed, his body shaking, his shirt damp with sweat despite the cold.

He could not think. Something was pounding inside his head and it was difficult to breathe. He could not make himself turn back to look at Javert when he went to the small stove, barely able to see what his hands were doing as his body kept shaking for no reason.

***

Javert had stayed away this night. At least Valjean believed that it was night. He could barely see what was happening outside the window, for the street was filled with heavy fog once more. It was impossible to see; even the house across the narrow alley was completely hidden from view. He could barely see the outline of the tree whose branches he had come to know so well during the weeks—months?—he had been Javert’s prisoner now.

Javert had hurried away hastily in the morning without even repeating his usual warning; even so, the door was locked, and Valjean knew that the windows would not open.

And where would he go, even if they stood open for him? There was nowhere left now. Nowhere but this small prison he shared with Javert.

Javert was right—he had given himself up to Javert, he remembered that much at least.

_I regard myself as your prisoner._

Were those not the very words he had spoken?

When had he spoken them, and where? The details were hazy now, but spoken them he had, and they were just as true now as they had been then.

Outside, the fog shifted, but there was nothing to see but billowing white. Someone must have been by to light the street lanterns, but there was too much fog to make out the lantern posts. Even their light was swallowed by the hungry sea of whit. All that remained was a pale illumination that barely sufficed to show that there was nothing but fog outside their window.

Valjean forced himself to turn away. His gaze came to rest upon the bed.

Javert’s room was bare, but the bed was large enough for two. As he gazed upon the blanket, he shivered again, remembering the weight of Javert’s hand upon his hip. Even now it made him tremble. But had he not surrendered to Javert?

He had given him his word. He was Javert’s prisoner—as much because Javert had locked him here as because there was nowhere else for him to go.

It was no wonder that Javert looked at him with such anger. How could Valjean seek for a way out after he had told Javert that he was his?

There was no hope. Cosette was lost, and with her all light. What use then was it to run from Javert when the long chase was over at last?

Perhaps this night, Javert would reach out again. Perhaps this night Valjean would remain quiet, would not flee, would not flinch away from the heat of Javert’s skin.

The thought made him reel, like a man unexpectedly coming face to face with an abyss that had opened in the earth before him.

And yet, now, with Cosette gone, would it not be better to hasten the fall, to willingly allow himself to plunge into the darkness that stared at him with such hunger from Javert’s eyes?

There was a sound outside.

At first, it was barely audible. The fog swallowed all noise. Even so, he could just barely make it out.

It was the sound of feet—small feet in silken boots, the sound of it so familiar that it felt as if a hand had suddenly reached into his chest and torn out his heart.

Without thought, he hastened to the window again, half falling, half leaning against the icy glass.

Outside, there was nothing to see but the ever-shifting fog. His hand rose to his chest, fingers clenching around the fabric of his shirt as if that could soothe the stabbing pain as he looked outside, for a moment filled with a wild, disbelieving hope—it was her, it was really her, she had come and all would be forgiven...

Then reality intruded and he gasped painfully. He could not go to her. She could not know. How would he live with the shame of knowing what she saw when she looked at him? And there was more than his own shame at stake—her happiness, her future, the life she and Pontmercy now had. To touch her life with the fingers of a galley-slave would be to irrevocably stain it.

It was for her own good that he had to stay away. He should be grateful to Javert that he was locked inside where he could do no harm to the future that was hers by right.

Then his thoughts turned to the fog outside and the encroaching darkness of night.

What was Cosette doing out there in the darkness? The streets surrounding the Gorbeau hovel were not safe. This was no place for Cosette, and she had no reason to be here.

She could not be here for Valjean—no one knew where he was. Had she become lost in the heavy fog; had chance led her into the alley, past the old Gorbeau house? Had a distant childhood memory perhaps led her through alleys she half-remembered from the days they had spent here together, hoping for a way out of this fog or a carriage to take her back home?

Valjean was at the door before he even realized that he had moved, his hand on the door handle.

It would not open, he knew that, and he also knew that if he were to use his strength to force the door open, Javert would see, and what might he do then...?

But again there was the sound of light feet, and somewhere in the house, he could hear the familiar creak of someone climbing the stairs.

Had providence taken her hand and led her inside?

Javert could not find her here.

That thought was all it took for him to try the handle. 

He had been so certain that it would not move. Not for a moment had he doubted that the door would be locked, as it had been locked every day before. Now he could only stare, bewildered, as the handle turned obediently and the door opened before him.

Outside, there was only darkness waiting. There was no light in the corridor.

Again he heard the sound of someone on the stair, somewhere, and the slightest rustle, like that of a dress brushing against the wall.

His heart racing, he took a first step past the boundary of the door, expecting every moment to feel the heavy hand of Javert close around his collar.

But the corridor outside was silent. There was no one in it but him.

Valjean took another step forward. There was some light, he now saw, coming in through the grimy windows. It allowed him to see just enough to make out the shape of the corridor and the stairs that led down.

His heartbeat seemed as loud as thunder as he moved slowly forward. Surely it was impossible? She could not be here—but if she were, if Javert were to see her, if she might find out—

He had reached the stairs. The sparse light from the window did not reach this corner of the corridor so that it seemed as if the stairs led down straight into an abyss. Instinctively, he shuddered as he stared into the darkness that awaited him.

The nothingness before him seemed strangely hostile. All of his nerves were on edge. Was he truly alone in this house? Perhaps Javert was merely playing a game with him. Perhaps Javert was testing him and had left the door unlocked to see what he would do.

Again he remembered his promise. He was Javert’s prisoner—a willing prisoner, even though he was locked in Javert’s apartment. He could have run after the events of the barricade, and yet he had not. Why would he run now, when nothing had changed?

For a moment, with the house completely silent so that all he could hear was the rapid beating of his own heart, he hesitated.

It would be so easy to return. Only a few steps were between him and Javert’s room. If he closed the door behind him, Javert would never know that he had attempted to leave.

And then, somewhere below, there was that sound again—the familiar sound of silken shoes on a wooden floor, the rustle of a petticoat. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was Cosette, lost in the terrible darkness of this hovel as she had once been lost in a dark wood.

He took a step forward.

As soon as his foot came to rest on the first stair, a furious figure of darkness came at him from below.

For a long moment, as he silently struggled with the wraith that fought to contain him, he thought in his horror that the night had birthed a demon that had come for him at last. Yet a moment later, when he had been forced to take a few steps back, the sparse light that fell in from the window illuminated a familiar figure.

Javert.

Despite his terror, Valjean ceased all resistance as he glanced up at Javert’s face. Outside, the moon must have broken through the clouds and the fog, for a rare ray of light illuminated Javert’s face. It was a terrible white, his eyes burning like coal, his whiskers bristling, and when he bared his teeth, Valjean thought that now, a last, his time had come. Javert would make an end of it now, one way or another.

Instead, somehow, they had made it back into Javert’s room.

Javert had not yet spoken a word, the fury in his eyes rendering Valjean silent as well. Javert drew the door shut behind him with such force that there was an echoing boom. It sounded like a granite door closing on a crypt. Valjean trembled.

Then, with a swift step, Javert came forward, eyes still burning as his hands clenched around Valjean’s collar.

“You promised!” The fury in his voice made Valjean shudder. “You promised you would be mine! How dare you!”

“I was not trying to leave,” Valjean said, something clenching inside his chest when Javert bared his teeth at him again, large hands tightening around his shoulders so that he felt as helpless as a lamb in the claws of a tiger.

“Lies,” Javert hissed. “Lies, Jean Valjean, like everything else you have ever said.”

The accusation stung—but it was true. Javert had forbidden him from leaving his room, and yet Valjean had gone outside as soon as the door had been left unlocked.

Oh, it had been easier to be a prisoner in the galleys of the south, with iron to bind him and beatings to keep him from open doors.

“Why are you doing this?” Valjean asked in his despair.

Javert, who had been advancing towards him, abruptly stopped. The anger in his eyes came blazing forth with such force now that Valjean wanted to turn away and hide from that stare.

Javert had always unsettled him. Always, Javert had looked at him with such suspicion—and then later, when the truth had been revealed, there had been vindication in his gaze, and a fatalism that seemed more suited to a marble statue of Saint Michael than a police agent. At times, Javert had seemed barely human—Valjean remembered well the terrible joy upon his face when he burst in on Fantine on her deathbed.

Now, in the autumnal gloom that shrouded the small chamber, Javert in truth seemed as he had stepped forth from some unearthly place.

“I don’t understand,” Valjean said again, his heart beating harder in his chest as he forced himself to look at Javert and those hungry eyes whose darkness seemed to want to swallow him. “Why imprison me here? I told you that I consider myself your prisoner. You were to take me to the station-house, where I would have been locked in a cell. Then the judge, a prison, the chain—or perhaps merely a few weeks before it would have all been over on the scaffold. Instead you have kept me here. It must have been weeks now. Autumn is nearly gone. What do you want with me?”

Javert advanced towards him once more. 

“You are mine,” he said again, as unbending as iron. “You cannot leave. I’m keeping you safe—”

He cut off there, and Valjean shuddered again as he understood at last. Javert had no wish to deliver him to the iron shackles, to the chain, to the fatal fall of the blade. Were Valjean to leave this house, were someone to see him, he would be arrested and brought before a judge. Thus, Javert had decided to imprison him here, to be his jailer here in his own home.

There was a certain comfort in the thought that he would not know the shame of the chain again at his age. The guillotine no longer did its work on the Place de Grève, but would not the Barrière Saint-Jacques draw the same crowd? Was it not possible that he would be recognized, that the crowd would cry out his name until it was carried to Cosette’s ears?

In this small chamber that belonged to Javert, Valjean was safe from the outside world. He might have preferred a faster end, but surely, considering what might have awaited him, this was a mercy. Given that he had surrendered to it himself, Javert had every right to be angry with him.

“I’m sorry,” Valjean said, barely able to draw in a breath, for Javert was still close, eyes still blazing with a dark heat that made Valjean’s heart constrict in his chest with instinctive fear. “I wasn’t intending to leave. But there was a sound—somewhere outside, I thought that I heard her—Cosette...”

As soon as he spoke her name, Javert stiffened, the fury on his face such that Valjean could only watch in mute terror as Javert came even closer. He took a step backward, and then another step—yet Javert refused to let go of him, his hand still holding Valjean’s collar in a tight grip.

Then Valjean bumped into the wooden frame of the bed behind him and gasped, trapped now with nowhere to go, the bed behind him and Javert in front of him.

Javert’s teeth were bared. In the dark circles of his eyes Valjean thought that he could see now the terrible thing that had looked at him from the darkness out there in the corridor—which had been waiting, biding its time all along, this creature of hunger and darkness whose teeth Valjean had felt gnawing at his bones every morning when he awoke in this bed, aware of nothing but his loneliness and her loss.

Then Javert lunged forward with the quickness of the wolf and Valjean dimly heard himself cry out at last, waiting for those teeth to tear at his flesh as they had in half-remembered fever dreams.

Instead, Javert’s mouth met his.

Javert’s breath filled his lungs until Valjean gasped and clutched at Javert, too dizzy to stand. Together, they fell onto the bed, and when he felt Javert’s fever-hot skin against his own, he trembled again.

It was a fever, it was a sickness, and yet it was not. Javert’s skin was damp and scalding hot as they came together. Between Valjean’s own legs, blood was pounding. He closed his eyes as Javert reached into his trousers with rough fingers and freed him.

This was what he had been afraid of for so long, he realized, overwhelmed when Javert’s hand closed around him demandingly. No one had touched him thus before; Javert’s fingers were too hot, too rough, and all the same Valjean’s blood surged through his veins, his body throbbed, and his hand found Javert’s arm and clenched around it.

Javert’s grip was merciless—and was that not what he had wanted, to lose himself, to be undone, to be wiped away like a stain from Cosette’s heart?

All along, he had thought that it was fear that made his heart pound and his body shiver when Javert watched him from brooding eyes, when they rested side by side at night. Now, as heat rushed through his body, he felt himself tremble even as his body eagerly arched into Javert.

Was this what he had been afraid of all this time?

Javert’s hand worked him with something that amounted to fury, but Valjean could not protest.

As his body strained towards Javert, he heard the sounds he made—they were like those of a dying man, a hoarse, helpless gasping for breath. And still Javert showed no mercy, his thumb circling around the crown of Valjean’s shaft as if to lay claim to it, again and again, until every throb of Valjean’s panicked heart was proclaiming an overwhelmed surrender, arching into the roughness of Javert’s touch as if that was all that kept him alive.

Valjean had touched himself—rarely, but sometimes it had happened, with no real thoughts of another in his mind, merely a quick, shameful relief from longings he was otherwise happy to ignore. It had always been over fast, leaving him with a damp discomfort and shame twisting deep in his stomach.

Javert’s touch was nothing like those almost-buried memories. There was a frenzy in Javert’s touch—a madness, perhaps, but if it was indeed madness, then it was one Valjean shared. His blood was running hot with it now, his body straining for more as his gasps became helpless moans like those of a man tortured—but there was no pain, only pleasure when it ended, his entire body shuddering as he spilled himself in obedience to Javert’s harsh grasp.

Tentatively, he reached out himself when it was done. Javert was so hot Valjean flinched back at the first touch, afraid that he had burned himself, before he gathered his courage and wrapped his fingers around Javert’s thick shaft. In his grasp, Javert seemed as rigid as iron, pulsating heat. When Valjean began to stroke him, his fingers clumsy, Javert groaned, his hand clenching around Valjean’s shoulder once more as if even now he was seeking to keep him from escape.

Javert’s climax came fast, with little warning. The heat pouring over his knuckles made Valjean shudder again, uncertain of himself, but the grasp of Javert’s fingers lost its tightness, and there was something soothing in the sensation of Javert’s exhausted breath against his cheek.

***

He must have fallen asleep.

The house was dark and silent. There was a warm presence next to him in the bed. Before, Javert’s company had always felt ominous; Valjean might just as well have rested next to a loaded musket or a chained dog.

Now, there was bare skin brushing against his own. He could feel Javert’s warmth where hard limbs touched his own, and unlike many other mornings, there was no initial wave of confusion and terror to find himself trapped in this place with Javert.

Perhaps now, at last, they could move on. Perhaps the darkness that had settled on his mind for so long would lift, now that Valjean knew that there was nothing to fear from Javert—that in the end, what Javert had wanted was no more than what Valjean’s own body had wanted: companionship, a careful touch, the warmth of another person.

Perhaps now, too, Javert would see that he had nothing to fear, that Valjean had no reason to flee.

Perhaps soon, the autumnal shroud would lift and the clear, cold air of winter would arrive, and while it grew cold outside, they would manage to kindle a light in here. Even with Cosette gone, there was no need for the gloomy burden that had weighed on him so heavily that on some days, it had felt impossible to take a single step.

Carefully, Valjean sat up. The wind was no longer roaring outside. There was no sound of rain drumming against the window. Perhaps tomorrow, the sun would shine and the fog would lift and he would see the alley outside transformed by red and golden leaves...

Slowly, he slipped from the bed, then moved towards the window. Before, his gaze had always been drawn to that small glimpse of the outside world, even though in this season he could see little but the mist that drifted through the narrow street outside. Today, he found himself turning back towards the bed instead, his eyes coming to rest in quiet wonder on Javert.

Javert was still asleep.

Even at rest, there was something in him that set Valjean’s nerves on edge. Asleep, Javert should have exuded peace; he did not. In repose, the lines of his face had softened, yet the coarse whiskers and imposing eyebrows still gave him a look of severity.

Nevertheless, one of his hands had come to rest on the spot Valjean had just abandoned. There it curled, open and vulnerable, and Valjean felt something in him soften when for the first time, the sight of the large hand did not make him think of the iron grip on his collar but of how warm it had felt, how human, how it had trembled, too, when they had at last come together.

For a moment, as he stood gazing at Javert, he was filled with a quiet clarity he had not felt since he had last stood within Saint-Sulpice and heard the tolling of the bells. It felt as if the autumnal gloom had lifted, the fog surrounding him had dispersed, the crushing weight lifted from his shoulders at last.

Almost he turned away from the window to take a step back towards the bed—and that was when he heard the sound.

It was unmistakable this time. Someone was weeping, not far away.

Shocked, he stood still, listening.

The sound came again—not from outside, but echoing eerily as though it had traveled through the twisted corridors of the Gorbeau tenement. Instinctively, he took a step towards the door. Then he hesitated again, turning back to look at the bed where Javert was still asleep.

Again there was a low, echoing sound of despair—a young woman was crying. Valjean felt his heart clench. The sound was familiar—and yet, it was impossible. It could not be her.

Despite himself, he inched towards the door, his heart beating so fast that all thought of Javert was forgotten.

At the door, he hesitated. For some reason, it stood a crack open. Had Javert left it like that when he had come in? Valjean could not remember now.

Again Valjean turned his head. Javert was still asleep. If he were to wake him...

But no. Javert would never allow him to go out. And even the thought of speaking her name to Javert made him tremble.

He turned back to look at the door. Beyond, there was only darkness. There was no light in the corridor outside, no lamp—not even a single candle.

How terrified Cosette had to be, to be lost in this darkness!

Valjean reached out and carefully pushed open the door—and then, at last, he could finally make out a word in that distant sound of tears.

_Father,_ the grief-stricken voice said.

It was Cosette. He would know that voice anywhere.

Without another thought he rushed out into the corridor. He was barefoot, but he took no note of the chill of the floor beneath his feet. She was there, somewhere in the darkness, lost inside this house. She had come to find him—she had come! He would be forgiven; he would hold her in his arms again; he would be _father_ once more!

He shuddered at the sweetness of that thought even as he hastened down the stairs. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly; he only avoided falling thanks to the small amount of light that fell in through a dirty window somewhere above.

Then there was another sound.

It came from the floor upstairs—and it was a sound Valjean knew just as well as the sound of Cosette’s voice.

It was the sound of Javert’s boots, somewhere on the stair above him.

Squeezing his eyes shut against his despair, Valjean blindly hastened on. He could not stop—he could not allow Javert to catch him. Javert would not understand, and Cosette was somewhere close, alone and lost in the darkness...

There was the sound of boots again, heavy on the stairs. It was much closer now, and Valjean shuddered. He did not dare to turn around for fear that even a heartbeat of inattention would be enough to end it all.

Instead he veered, blindly turning down a corridor when he heard the distant crying echoing through the hallway, praying that he was still going into the right direction.

There was more light. He could not quite make out where it was coming from, but it did not matter. He could see dim outlines now, the shadows of alcoves and closed doors as he ran past them, his chest burning.

How long had he run? Surely it was impossible for this corridor to stretch for so long. The house was not so large—unless it was merely his terror that made him believe that he had been running for long minutes.

Javert was still behind him. He could hear him, the heavy fall of his boots onto the wooden floor, and once or twice, he thought that he felt a ghostly touch, as if Javert had reached out to grab him from behind and had just barely missed.

His heart was beating so fast that with every step he took, there was a stabbing pain in his chest. Still he ran.

The light came from the end of the corridor. He still could not see whether there was an open window there, but the darkness was slowly receding the further he ran. There was no door that he could see—but finally, when there was enough light that he might have been able to read a letter, had he wanted to, the corridor turned another corner.

Javert was still behind him, silent but for the dogged fall of his boots on the wooden floor. Gasping for breath, his eyes tearing at the pain in his chest, Valjean threw himself around the corner just when he could feel the distinctive brush of fingertips against his back.

This time, a howl of rage escaped Javert. “Valjean,” he cried, “Valjean, you are mine! You promised! _You promised you would be mine!_“

Valjean groaned as his heart clenched, then jerked, as if it wanted to tear itself apart in his chest.

But he could still hear Cosette crying. He had heard her all this time as he had run—and now, at last, her sounds had grown so loud that he knew that he was close. If only he could find her before Javert caught him...

Then he saw the door. It was at the end of the hallway he had entered. There were windows here—dusty windows, hung with spider webs, but even so, daylight fell in through them. From the corner of his eye, he thought that he could see the green of trees outside through the ever-present mist.

Again Javert’s fingertips brushed his shoulder, and this time the touch burned him as if it carried all of Javert’s rage. He wished that he could tell Javert that he was sorry, that he would return, that he would keep his promise if only he could find Cosette first, but there was no time for that, and something told him that Javert would never agree to it. So he continued to run, every breath hurting more than the last until it felt as if his legs were heavy like lead and his lungs full of fire.

The door was directly in front of him now, and her sounds of grief came from behind it. Hastening towards it, he desperately stretched out his hand, just as Javert’s hand clenched around his collar.

With a cry of despair, Valjean tore himself free. He could hear the sound Javert made, an inhuman wail of despair and rage—and then his hand was on the door and it opened, as easily as if it had been waiting for his touch all along, and he hurtled out into a quiet garden.

Clear, cold air filled his lungs.

Where was he?

It had to be the abandoned, overgrown garden at the back of the Gorbeau house—the fog was heavy, and he could not see the outlines of the nearby houses. He could see trees, their branches reaching through the fog like eerie, disembodied limbs.

On a different day, the sight might have made him shudder; now, all he could think of was Cosette.

She had to be close, so close... Where was she?

“Oh father,” the voice sighed again.

It was Cosette. It was her voice.

He shivered again, this time in disbelieving delight. Then it was true! Then he would really see her again, hold her in his arms!

He went forward, deeper into the fog. All around him he could see the dark shapes of trees, branches stretching through the mist. Here and there were strange blocks of stone, vague outlines of what had to be the small shacks and outhouses he dimly remembered from those weeks when he had lived here, long ago.

He paid them little mind. Cosette was very close now.

Behind him, he could make out the tread of Javert’s boots once more—but Javert was walking slowly now, as if resigned.

Did he really think that Valjean wanted to escape him?

Warmth filled Valjean’s heart, and a sudden, unexpected surge of affection for Javert. Did Javert not know that Valjean had no place in this world but this apartment he shared with him?

After he had found Cosette and helped her to find her way home, he would return to their room and apologize to Javert, and then, once more, all that remained of him would belong to Javert. He had not intended to hurt Javert—but what was half an hour of giving Valjean his freedom when afterward, Valjean would be truly his?

Javert would see that, surely, as soon as they had found Cosette.

The fog was lifting now. Ahead, Valjean could see the shape of a human figure. He could hear voices too—_her_ voice!

The corners of his mouth lifted into a smile. His face had grown unused to smiles, his cheeks aching, but he could barely contain his joy as he at last stepped out of the mist and found himself right in front of her.

In the late autumn light, her hair shone with the color of ripe chestnuts. She was dressed very well—her dress was made of black damask and she wore a matching pelisse of black satin. For a moment, Valjean believed that he beheld her once more in the mourning dress she had worn when they entered the convent of Petit-Picpus. She was kneeling, her eyes on the ground. She had not seen Valjean approach.

“Cosette,” he said, before he remembered what he had to be to her now, “Madame, it is you! I thought you had to be lost, and here you are!”

She was still crying and seemed to not have heard him through the sound of her tears.

“Valjean,” Javert said behind him.

Valjean’s heart constricted in sudden shock when he was reminded that Javert was still here as well. No, Cosette could not remain here—not when one wrong word by Javert could give everything away. How would he live if he had to remember the look she would give him as soon as she heard the truth—that the man she had come to love as her father was a convict?

He ignored Javert and approached Cosette.

“Cosette—Madame—it is well; you are not lost. Here, take my hand and I will find you a carriage to take you home—”

Now, at last, Cosette looked up. Valjean gave her a smile through tears as he reached out for her hand.

Cosette as well reached out. And then, instead of taking Valjean’s hand, she took hold of a different hand—a slender hand in black gloves, which belonged to a young man who had suddenly appeared out of the fog.

It was the Baron Pontmercy, who in his arms carried a large bouquet of chrysanthemums. Dizzy with confusion, Valjean watched as he passed the flowers to Cosette, who then placed them on the ground.

It was a grave she had been kneeling before, Valjean realized with sudden shock. Now that the fog had retreated, he could see that they were not in the garden behind the Gorbeau hovel but in a graveyard. Bindweed grew all around them, and here and there, gravestones and statues rose from the wisps of mist that remained.

“I warned you,” Javert said behind him. “I warned you not to come. Did I not tell you you could never leave the room? Look what you have done.”

There was sorrow in Javert’s voice, but Valjean could not make himself turn to him. Instead, he watched as Pontmercy knelt by Cosette’s side. He rested one hand on her back, then, diffidently, pulled something from his pocket.

“I wrote something,” Pontmercy said quietly. “Will you let me read it?”

Cosette inclined her head, her tear-wet face still resting on the grave before her.

_“He is asleep. Though his mettle was sorely tried,_  
He lived, and when he lost his angel, died.  
It happened calmly, on its own,  
The way night comes when day is done.” 

His pulse was echoing in Valjean’s ears, so loud that he could barely make out the sound of Pontmercy’s voice when the man rose. Dizzily, Valjean watched as Pontmercy helped Cosette up.

He wanted to reach out to her, to ask her not to leave, but he felt rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes away from the grave at which she had placed the flowers.

No name was inscribed on it, and yet it filled Valjean with deep terror.

Cosette did not look at him, leaning on Pontmercy as she approached the spot where Valjean stood. Helplessly, he reached out his hand—and then watched as she walked _through_ it as if his hand was nothing more than another wisp of mist.

As he stared at her in disbelief, he saw her shudder and tighten her hold on Pontmercy.

“You should not come in this sort of weather,” Pontmercy said. “It cannot be good for you.”

“How could I not come?” she asked, and after a moment he inclined his head.

“Besides, sometimes I feel as if he is still close,” she murmured. “When I am here, I can see him before me so clearly. Was it the same for you?”

Pontmercy hesitated for a moment, then shook his head, his voice thick with shame. “I remember very little. Whenever I went to visit his grave... I wept because I did not see him before me at all, and because he died without seeing me, as he had so wished.”

What could they be speaking of? Impossible…

As Valjean watched them without understanding, he felt a cold wind begin to blow. Little by little, mist began to rise from the ground once more. He could still hear Cosette and Pontmercy speaking, although he could no longer make out the words. Their voices echoed eerily, as if they were standing in a large hall rather than outside, surrounded by trees.

Shuddering, Valjean forced himself to take a step forward, then another. It hurt to move; even now, something was pulling at him, so that lifting his foot took as much strength as it had once taken to lift a fallen cart or hold up a caryatid. Still he persevered, and at last, his stretched-out hand rested against the gravestone before which Cosette had wept.

To his surprise, the stone felt solid. It was cold against his hand, but he could feel the tiny irregularities of the stone, the slight roughness of its texture.

He would have sworn the stone was real. There was a finiteness to it, a mass that both drew him towards it while simultaneously repulsing him. Still he pressed his hand against it, trembling, thinking of the poem Pontmercy had recited.

Could it be, this monstrous truth that was taking shape in his mind…?

All of a sudden, he became aware of a presence behind him. He did not have to turn to know who it was that approached him.

He turned regardless.

Javert was much as he remembered him, but now, for the first time, Valjean could raise his eyes to those of Javert, behold the darkness beckoning from their depths, and not shy away.

“You are like me,” he said tonelessly. “All this time, you knew…”

Javert’s laugh was sharp and brittle, like shattering ice. “You promised you would be mine. My prisoner. There on the quay, you said it. And after the river, when I found that it was not over, that I was drifting here, lost, clinging to something… As long as you were in there with me, you were safe. It was what you wanted. You and me, we are alike. I let you keep your illusions. I tried to spare you from…”

He broke off, gesturing at the silent tombs that rose from the mist around them.

“You have destroyed everything.” There was a hollowness in Javert’s voice that Valjean had not heard in it before.

It was true—now that they were out here on the cemetery, Javert seemed strangely diminished. No longer was he the vision of terror he had become, the demon-like creature that had hunted Valjean through endless corridors. There was a translucent quality to him, as if the hands clutching cudgel and iron chains were no more substantial than the mist that wafted through the grass between the graves.

“You had no right to keep me from her,” Valjean said.

Javert laughed bitterly. “That was your own choice. I merely took what you had offered. Why am I still here, if not...” Javert fell silent again. Then he took a step forward, his hand reaching out, the large hand that had so often closed around Valjean’s shoulder to hold him fast. “You are still mine. That was the bargain you made. Come back with me. I demand it.”

For a moment, Valjean wavered. There was something in Javert’s command that bade him rise as he had been told to—some ghostly power, perhaps, fueling a strange compulsion that even now was hard to resist.

But the stone beneath his hand was firm. It was cold, damp with the fog, and through the touch, Valjean felt a strength return to his limbs he had not known in a long time, a cutting clarity of mind and thought as if the heaviness on his shoulders had been lifted by some other hand.

The wind was still blowing. On the far side of the cemetery, the fog had grown denser. It looked as if a wall of white had slowly risen there—unassailable, spectral yet massive, swallowing both light and sound.

What lay beyond it?

If only he had his candlesticks with him. If he had a light, then surely the mist would lift. With his candlesticks, perhaps he could walk into the fog and it would not swallow him, but part and merely let him through into what was beyond.

Something was pulling him towards it. There was a promise in the blank canvas of the mist, in the absence of sound and sight. In that nothingness, a man’s past would be erased like a slate wiped clean with a single gesture.

Was that not what he had wanted? What he had hoped for all those long weeks when he had denied himself Cosette’s smiles?

But now, faced with such annihilation, he hesitated. If that burden was lifted from his back—then what would remain? To walk into that mist and be undone, to become no more than a wisp of fog that soon the sun’s rays would burn away!

Oh, but to lose what he had left of her—to lose the memories of her love together with the memories of the years in chains!

Slowly, he turned his head. Javert was still watching him, and Valjean thought he understood at last the desperate hunger in his eyes, the one command Javert had repeated again and again.

He almost wished that he had never disobeyed Javert. To be unaware meant to still have that memory of Cosette living in his heart—more: that sweetest torment of all, the dagger in his heart that was the undying hope that he might see her again, that he would be forgiven, that she would laugh and call him _father_!

Javert had spoken the truth: he had been protecting Valjean. Valjean could see that now. Perhaps there had been selfishness in that as well—yet could he blame Javert for that when still he hoped that Cosette might love him, even knowing what the truth about his past might do to her?

“Why are you here?” Valjean asked at last. “Why have you not walked into the mist?”

There was something to be said for Javert: unlike Valjean, he had never been afraid. He had never shied away from what was necessary.

Javert buried his hands in his whiskers, tugging angrily as he stared at the mist beyond in a mixture of abhorrence and longing.

“I cannot,” he said, then laughed, a horrible, soundless laugh. “It does not matter. I sought to escape: from you, from this world. This is my sentence then surely: to be given no escape. I cannot go. My body drowned. Yet I am still here. You may leave, but I cannot. At first, when I saw you, I thought—you had made that promise—”

Javert shook his head angrily, and Valjean understood at last. Javert had imagined for a while that Valjean might be bound to this half life, to Javert, due to the promise he had given him.

And perhaps that was part of the reason it was Javert he had encountered in this strange land in-between. But that promise had been given to a living man. Moreover, it had never been meant for Javert: it was a promise to the state, to authority; Javert would play no part in it that went beyond putting the cuffs on him and accompanying him to the station-house.

No, it had never been Javert who had caused Valjean’s soul to linger. It had been Cosette. And now that he had been granted that final glance at her, he could release his hold on her, on the wind and the soil and the falling leaves of this cemetery. he could walk into the mist, even without a light to see what awaited him, and at last his toil would be over.

But that meant that he would never see her again. It meant also to leave Javert behind—to turn away from him and walk a path while Javert was bound to his own twilight existence, to leave Javert alone, condemned, in an eternal cell constructed from old memories—a place without sunlight, without flowers, without a sky.

“You would keep me here if you could?” Valjean said in a low voice.

Javert laughed his harsh laugh once more and held out his hand with the shackles in them.

“I haven’t changed. Here is the proof. I would rather cast myself into the river than live in a world where I let you go free.”

“But you did not arrest me, even though I surrendered myself to you.”

“Even so.” Javert’s smile was little more than a grimace of agony. “That was then. Here, now... I would not let you go free. Not from this prison! You brought me here; it seemed fair that you should share it with me. But I cannot keep you. I tried, but—”

Without conscious thought, Valjean took a step towards Javert. His heart was pounding in his chest. He could barely feel the coldness of the wind; without the solidity of the gravestone against his palm, already the graveyard itself seemed of little more substance than the mist that rose all around them.

Even now, he was aware of the path behind him. Like a weakened link in a chain, he was conscious of that door in the way only a prisoner could be. It promised escape, freedom, salvation.

Instead, he found himself stretching out his hands towards Javert, palms upwards, wrists together.

“What are you doing?” Javert asked, barely audible beneath the sound of the wind.

“I told you,” Valjean said hollowly. “Since that morning at the barricade, I have regarded myself as your prisoner.”

Javert stared at him, darkness still swirling behind his eyes. It frightened Valjean—still, even knowing what he did, it frightened him. Surely Javert would consume him just as much as the wall of mist would have swallowed him.

Nevertheless, he did not pull back his hands when Javert reached for him, and when the heavy shackles closed around his wrists, there was a relief in the familiarity of their weight.

Behind Javert, behind the tombs and bare trees, he could now make out a familiar building. It was the Gorbeau hovel, rising dark from the lingering mist.

Javert was silent as they marched back to it side by side. A part of Valjean was still aware of what he left behind in the mist—a pulsating, niggling possibility that tugged at him, even when they stepped into the dark corridor with its smell of rotting wood.

He did not turn back when the door fell closed behind him. Instead, the iron still heavy around his wrists, he listened to the familiar sound as Javert turned the rusty key to lock the door.

“Do not ever seek to leave,” Javert said. “You are mine now.”

Valjean looked to the window. He could barely make out the bare branch of a tree in the heavy mist outside.

He looked away from the window, meeting Javert’s gaze without fear. He knew the thing that looked back at him from Javert’s eyes now. He could feel it, buried deep in his own heart.

“I am yours.”


End file.
